


first, the water draws back

by maderilien



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Banter, Battle Couple, Chosen One Level 999, Fluff and Humor, Implied Self-Worth Issues, M/M, Mandatory Angsty Lines, on both sides :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29314974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maderilien/pseuds/maderilien
Summary: then, the ocean unravels.—Boba Fett crash lands on a rebel-infested planet. Things somehow get better from there.
Relationships: Boba Fett/Darth Vader
Comments: 18
Kudos: 49





	first, the water draws back

**Author's Note:**

> every time I get massively stuck on my bobadin wip I end up writing darthfett. i like this predicament. warning: if the vader in this fic were a videogame character, people would be massively lobbying to nerf his power. i did not hold back

_tsunami,_ **n.** a cataclysm resulting from a destructive sea wave caused by an earthquake or volcanic eruption; also called _seismic sea wave_

Boba’s running on empty when something smashes into the side of Slave-I. The impact is powerful enough to throw him sideways violently, almost ripping him out of the seat entirely. Several errors pop up immediately on the screen, followed by the incessant beeping of the computer advising him to slow his descent. He rushes to start the emergency landing procedure, wide awake despite the good seventy-two hours’ worth of exhaustion in his eyes.

(His blood might be pure caf by this point.)

A large forest spreads out underneath him. In the distance, the land cuts off suddenly with a steep cliff, leading further into a wide, river-trodden valley. The ship may not make it in one piece if he stays in the air any longer, so he dives the very next moment, aiming to land as soon as possible. If he makes it to the cliff, it should offer him a good vantage point while he figures out what happened and how to fix it.

Slave-I (crash-)lands heavily, snapping all tree trunks in its path like toothpicks, until it skids to a halt, metal screeching, in a trench of its own making.

He startles awake a few seconds later, breath coming out in short bursts. 

He’s finally on solid ground. A headache is forming at his temples, not very intense, but slowly taking hold of his entire skull as he tries to get a sense of himself. His eyes hurt too. The light outside is so bright he winces even through his visor.

There’s Darth Vader standing next to Slave-I, close to the entrance. 

Boba sees this pitch black shadow from the corner of his eye as he walks out, looks at it once, properly, then moves on around the ship to inspect the damage.

 _Fuck, I hit my head harder than I thought,_ he thinks.

"Boba Fett," says the hallucination.

"That's me," he replies lightly, only half paying attention to the words. "I’m busy." 

As long as he doesn't drop dead in the woods somewhere on a backwater planet, he can deal with it. Slave-I might need some parts to be replaced, by the looks of things, and he's not sure he's got all of them in the cargo hold.

The wind wheezes strangely on this planet, a bit like someone breathing.

_"Fett."_

Boba freezes. That sounded far too authentic for even his sleep deprived brain to conjure. Is this a trick? He doesn't remember ingesting anything, but he did walk through a strange gas while hunting down the previous target one sector over. Perhaps some of it went past his filter, and it's now toying with him like a child would with a ragdoll. Late onset and all that.

He turns slowly, unable to decide which option he dreads more—Vader being actually, one-in-a-billion chance here, or _not,_ and it’s just Boba slowly losing his mind. (He's been expecting the latter for a while now.)

The shadow is still there, well defined against the green paint of Slave-I. Extremely realistic. And there is no wind, actually—only the saccadic artificial breath of the Dark Lord himself.

 _I'm too tired for this,_ is all that he manages to think in his shock.

"Lord Vader," Boba croaks in greeting. It takes him a moment longer than usual to gather himself in the presence of Darth Vader, for the multitude of reasons listed above.

"Unfortunate landing," the Sith states flatly. Did he materialize out of thin air just to throw insults at Boba?

"The scanners didn't pick up the missile that hit me," Boba replies, glaring. "Was it imperial?"

Darth Vader cranes his neck and looks toward the other end of the ship, where the smoke is coming from. "It wasn't," he answers unhurriedly, passing him by to get a better angle at Slave-I. He offers no further explanations.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Lord Vader?" Boba asks.

Vader spends another twenty-something seconds staring at Slave-I before he speaks next, to simply ask—"Why are you here?"

"Classified information, I’m afraid," Boba replies, watching him closely. It’s in his code of ethics to protect his client’s identity. A sign of professionalism, which is one of the reasons Vader keeps requesting his services, though Boba wonders how _this_ particular man would feel when denied an answer.

"How much are you owed?"

"50k."

"Consider the price paid twice over. The Empire needs you."

Boba only stifles his laugh of surprise because he has a good sense of self-preservation. Still, his eyes grow wide as he looks at Vader. "Whatever job the Empire needs me for will cost the usual fare as well," he manages to say. A hint of amusement carries on in his voice, subtle—hopefully subtle enough not to lead to his demise.

"Evidently. Come."

So, Boba Fett leaves his ship behind and follows Darth Vader toward the cliff, on a path that takes them out of the woods, then descends gently around the edge to a lower rocky platform. A small imperial base is set up close to the wall of rock, next to several man-sized openings dug into the cliff.

He’s had several opportunities to observe imperials at work during his travels throughout the Galaxy and it hasn’t failed to amuse him yet to see what a difference it makes to be in the presence of Darth Vader. No heads turn toward them, but it is beyond obvious they are the only ones everyone is focusing on. He can easily imagine everyone exhaling in relief the moment they vanish into another room.

Like a stone weighing down on your shoulders—that’s how it feels to be around Vader. Boba is not immune to this, as much as he holds his ground and doesn’t show it. He knows of Vader’s penchant to choke people quite well, has even seen it from the sidelines once, when an unlucky officer interrupted an important conversation between Vader and some Moff. Did the man deserve to get permanent tracheal damage?

Hard to say, being an Imp and all—they all deserve it, no matter where the punishment comes from.

But it was striking to be there, right _there,_ watching the event unfold unashamedly, because you knew you were not at risk. Not in that particular moment. That said, an irrational thought, or a gut feeling—or wishful thinking, if he were honest—tells Boba that he may toe the line between them more often than others. (An exciting thought.)

A similar heaviness hangs to the air now. There’s always something about Vader that makes him seem fiercer even when he is just standing there. His power is invisible, but not immaterial. It follows him. It reminds Boba of the powers of the Jedi, except Vader brings the promise of rushing, drowning waters. A calamity.

They stop in the central room of the barracks. All the people present tense up the second Vader walks in. Countless computer screens line two of the walls, displaying many glimpses into the tunnels underneath them, where it seems imperial workers are hard at work. It doesn’t look like a standard, industrial mining operation, though Boba is no expert on the matter.

"Fett," the Dark Lord says sharply, demanding his attention. "The Empire needs you to retrieve an item. Small device, no larger than a human hand. Metal. A broken sphere."

"How did the item" —Boba hesitates, but the words are already out, so he gets the rest of them in line with growing dread— "get lost?"

"It was stolen, not lost," Vader sneers. "Everywhere I go, I am surrounded by incompetents. At least _you_ are deserving of your reputation," he tells Boba angrily. He’s clearly not angry _with_ him but the impulse to take a step back is there alright.

The imperial officers collectively hold their breath. It’s more than obvious by the sudden silence that falls around them.

"It’s a wonder the Empire gets anything done."

Boba stands there, quiet. What would you say back? Would you even attempt to reply? Sometimes it seems as if the Dark Lord enjoys the sound of his own voice, so haughtily he speaks.

"It was stolen by a local rebel faction—insignificant in the grand scheme of things. They think themselves strong enough to stand against the imperial tide, but they are fools. Get it back. I expect the leader should be in possession of it."

Vader calls one of the officers to him with a sharp movement of his hand. At once, the unfortunate soul, a young woman with scars all over her face, spurs into motion, stopping a good distance away from Vader, and standing at attention.

"Send the bounty hunter the coordinates and supply him with anything he should request."

"Yes, Lord Vader!" the officer says, saluting.

With that, Darth Vader leaves him in the conference room to prepare, not another word uttered.

This is a simple mission, all things considered. He’s even in the area already. Usually he wouldn’t consider himself greedy, not in the way people think when they hear of the cost of his services, but the prospect of so many credits making their way to his account in exchange for barely lifting a finger sure puts him in a joyous mood.

(It’s for the name of ‘Fett’ that he demands his exorbitant prices, because the legacy of his father is worth it, and more. So much more.)

The officer transfers him the data, all the while throwing strange, not so inconspicuous looks over her shoulder at his face. Perhaps she thinks he doesn’t notice her, as he is mostly turned toward the security feed cameras, but he follows her movements from the corner of his eyes, assessing the potential threat. Always on edge, especially when surrounded by the Empire.

A similar amount of fidgeting accompanies their interaction. It’s not unwelcome at all to be regarded with fear and respect. Perhaps Darth Vader’s authoritative, intimidating appearance is onto something. What if Boba were to repaint his armour black? That would certainly strike fear _(more_ fear) in the eyes of his enemies. Maybe red. All red. To honour a parent—

—he shifts on his feet, rolls his shoulders suddenly, dispelling the slight discomfort settling underneath the pauldrons. It’s been three days since he last slept for more than two hours. Not the worst state he’s ever been in, but certainly not helping matters right now, to think of foolish things.

The Empire needs his services, and he must deliver.

***

The rebel base is strangely empty when Boba gets there. He sees it from a-flight, further down the valley, a solid building surrounded by anti-air cannons (is that what hit his ship?). It gives the impression of a well prepared team waiting inside. The mission doesn’t feel quite so simple anymore, though as he infiltrates it through a window on the upper floor, he finds it run by a skeleton crew only.

Less confused and more cautious now, he advances through it, keeping both eyes open. Several thermal scans reveal the staff present: five people, of which two appear to be asleep, and the other three are by the entrance on the ground level, seated at a table. He has yet to be detected, so he tries his best to stay that way, creeping along the corridors stealthily, EE-3 blaster drawn. Perhaps he will find the device without any unnecessary violence today.

He wanders the place for a good ten minutes, going from room to room, taking notice of all the signs of life, yet absence of any rebels. On the holotable in a large meeting room full of scattered chairs, he finds a broken, metallic sphere. The hologram is turned on, displaying the satellite view of the nearby geography, which Boba easily recognizes.

He takes the item in his hand, rolling it around to see its details better: faint, chipped inscriptions litter the surface; here and there, it is heavily uneven, the cuts not too wide, but with enough depth to them to reveal another substance underneath the outer shell, black as the night. He quirks an eyebrow at the sight—moving the item in the light makes the stuff shimmer faintly, almost like it is a tear into the fabric of the universe. What nonsense of an artifact is this?

Well, he’s paid to get the logistics out of the way, not to study it, so he secures it to his belt with a shrug. Certainly nothing of importance to someone like him.

He glances one more time at the holotable as he heads to the door and freezes.

Small dots and scribblings over the natural geography look quite familiar. Upon zooming in, he recognizes the imperial base, highlighted, as well as several routes to reach it from the forest-side. More than that, a small led light is blinking insistently next to the comm controls.

Might as well.

He taps on it, opening the unanswered message.

The low quality hologram of a harried woman pops up on the table, replacing the map. _"We’re in position. Good luck. Captain Mill over and out,"_ she says, nodding fiercely. The transmission cuts out.

Boba blinks. That doesn’t sound good.

He pulls up the previous message, morbidly curious.

_"Alpha squad took down one of their ships. It’s time. Over and out."_

They _did_ shoot him down! What misfortune, that he would fly over this part of the planet in that precise moment! This sort of thing shouldn’t surprise him anymore, considering his life, but he still finds himself shaking his head at the hologram.

He digs a bit further until he gets some proper intel out of the computer: rebel plans, some of their land-based attack strategy involving the anti-air cannons, and a chunk of info detailing their transport routes in the sector. Very compromising stuff, all in all. He wastes no time in transferring the data—what he’ll do with it remains to be seen, but it’s always a good idea to have as much intel on your enemies as you can. It might get him out of a mess later on.

There must be an attack going on right now, he thinks as he departs. Where else could have everybody gone, but at the imperial base? He chuckles at the thought. It doesn’t seem like these rebels have the faintest idea who is currently inspecting the operation here.

The quiet entertaining scenes he’s imagining as he flies back fall short of the actual things happening at the base. Once he gets within reach, the cacophony of blaster fire and thermal detonators has him quickly ducking from open air and landing in the trees outside the building before he is spotted and taken out by a sniper. It stinks of burned flesh and burned wood, strong enough that he gets a faint smell of it even through his helmet.

In the courtyard at the entrance of the base, a mass of rebels are shooting at stormtroopers barricaded on the other side, for once vastly outnumbered by the ‘good’ side of the conflict.

Boba stays put and thinks.

This isn’t his fight. His job was a fetch quest, only. If he’s careful, he can wait it all out.

It takes less than a minute for the fight to develop in the rebels’ favour: the stormtroopers are overwhelmed and killed ruthlessly (righteously, some would say), as the rebels slowly take over the base. Then, just as the morale starts to shift within their rounds, a shadow appears at the entrance of the building.

Darth Vader cleans the first row of soldiers with barely a sweep of his lightsaber. He moves like a tank, heavy and unrelenting, and though the rebels quickly scramble to get in position and shoot him down, he needn't do anything but flick his red saber this and that way to deflect their shots. 

His appearance sends the rebels into contained panic. They yell encouraging words at each other, mobilize as a group to take down the Sith, and it’s all very tragic to watch from the sideline. A bit like holding a butterfly underwater, feeling the faint contractions of its wing muscles as it desperately tries to escape.

A thermal detonator flies through the air toward Vader. He turns his hand to flick it away, but in a stroke of unimaginable luck, one of the rebels shoots it at the very last second, triggering the explosive inside instantly.

Boba startles. A shiny metallic cylinder drops a dozen meters away from him. Ahead, through the smoke, Darth Vader resurfaces, cape singed. Small metal parts fly toward him, reattaching themselves to his left leg and reforming it entirely as he steps forward tirelessly, an imperial machine.

"He's unarmed! Get him now!" one of the rebels shouts above the rest.

Though the might of Darth Vader is impressive, he is just one man, and Boba doesn't want to miss out on his money after he went through all that trouble. Not when Slave-I is still in shambles a little ways beyond the treeline too.

Shoulders set, he runs to pick up the lightsaber hilt, then flies in before he can change his mind, coming upon the rebels from behind in an efficient surprise attack.

Vader snaps his left hand out, catching the group nearest to him by their throats, and keeping them suspended in the air. Seeing his chance, Boba dives closer, already inputting the command for his wrist-rockets to be released at the target. Loud, deafening booms cover the rebels’ choked off screams as the barrage finishes them swiftly.

"You dropped this," Boba tells him serenely, dropping down by his side. He holds out the lightsaber in his right hand, waiting for Vader to turn around. The weight of the weapon is satisfying to hold—just heavy enough that it would give each swing a satisfying feel to it, but not enough to tire out the arm.

There is no acknowledgement from Vader as he takes it back, but Boba knows to look for it in the way he unleashes his powers more aggressively upon the enemies on the other side of the courtyard, leaving Boba to take care of the rest.

It goes well for the most part. Flying over their heads gives Boba a fantastic advantage, up until his jetpack runs out of fuel—he did travel a lot earlier—and he is forced to fight on the ground. That goes well for about thirty seconds. Fighting on the ground surrounded ten to one has him shooting his blaster much more frequently than the time being in the air gives him, and soon, the weapon overheats, then jams entirely.

He throws it on the ground and reaches for his backup blaster, when there is suddenly a blaster shot floating in his face. He hears the bang at the same moment he sees the neon bolt of light, and perhaps this is a skewed, slowed motion vision right before he dies, except—

—it stops a hand’s width away from his throat, frozen in the air. Boba doesn’t dare move a single finger. Within a few seconds, the trajectory of the shot is reversed and it hits the shooter right in the chest, burning right through the armour as if the force behind it is many times greater than it was originally fired with.

There is too much adrenaline coursing through his body to let him agonize over the details now. He wastes none of this borrowed time and tackles the nearest rebel to the ground, bringing up one of his knives and putting a quick, bloody end to the woman’s life.

"Fett!" Vader calls his name to attention. As soon as Boba looks his way, the metallic hilt of Vader’s lightsaber flies toward him in a solid arc, directly in his hands. Again, Boba Fett stares, not quite understanding what is going on, but the situation calls for action, not for dawdling, so he grips it in his right hand, powers it up with the press of a button, and tests the weight of that swing by himself.

He’s used actual long-bladed weapons before—how hard could this be, really?

As he slashes without hesitation at the first body in his path, he soon finds out that the answer is: not that hard.

The flurry of shots intensifies. They're not all blasters, Boba notices belatedly. Some of them are slug-throwers, leaving large imprints on the ground and on the walls where the shrapnels embeds itself violently. Vader spreads out his hands in front of him, palms toward the rebels, and though there is some strain visible in his stiff posture, he freezes the torrential rain of shrapnel in place.

Boba's heart drops in his stomach, and he's not even on the receiving side of that fury.

"Interesting technique, but that won't work on _me,"_ Vader says stiltedly, frustration dragging behind each word. "Enough of this." 

He brings his hands into claws, as if he is pulling them toward him. The weapons in the rebels' hands break apart into pieces, floating in the air, and the magazines unload, all the tiny bits of steel out in the open for all the world to see. 

Terror grows among the rebels, so stark that it finds its way into Boba as well. He stands amidst the ammunition like a statue, hoping that he will be spared by the onslaught.

Vader draws them all toward himself like a tidal wave. In the light of the sun, the shrapnel glitters like jewels suspended by the Force. Beauty and terror, in equal parts.

Then, within a blink, he unleashes them back at the rebels with a flick of his hands.

Death comes swiftly, almost like a final act of mercy.

***

Boba returns by his side, dazed. "Here is the item, and _here_ is your weapon, again," he says, presenting two things in his hands.

Vader is busy looking at the destroyed base—a good portion of the entrance has been blown to bits, with a sizable amount of damage done to the infrastructure. From what Boba can see, it's going to need a lot of work to be brought back into proper shape. Whatever tunnels there were underneath, he wouldn't be surprised if the debris blocked the paths now. The ground by the door is caved in as well.

It's a sorry sight. If it were Boba's troopers stationed here, fucking up so hard, he'd be pretty pissed. Maybe even disappointed, if he dared have any positive expectations from others at all.

Vader is mostly still. Boba almost expects him to take the lightsaber with his power, not even spare him a glance, but then he turns in one, fluid motion, like a liquid shadow in the sun, and takes it with his hand. His fingertips brush against Boba’s gloves.

Strange.

But now Boba can say he has lived to make physical contact with the Dark Lord. Brag about it in certain circles. Leave the details up to interpretation, if the situation calls for it.

There's no thanks from the Sith, but that’s fine.

There's no _need_ for thanks, Boba doesn't care about that. Besides, _he_ didn’t thank Vader either for saving his life back there.

Vader clips the lightsaber somewhere at his belt. The folds of his cloak swallow it from sight after, when he becomes a statue once again, deep in thought.

"The repairs to your ship will have to wait," he states. Clearly, as there is no-one left around to fix it, yet that's not where he stops. He turns his helmet slightly toward Boba, watches him for a second or two, then nods toward the forest behind them. "Come."

"I could probably fix it; there must be a mechanic in the towns nearby. Where are we going?" Boba says.

"No need to waste your time. The Empire will send a team."

 _Sure sounds like a waste of my time,_ Boba thinks bleakly. He could definitely work it out faster than these people, but he's in no rush. With so many credits coming his way from the Empire, he could maybe take it slow for a day or two. Get some sleep, even. Of course, that depends entirely on where they're heading.

Vader leads him into the woods, vaguely in the direction of Slave-I, until they reach a downstream path, and keep by its side for a good period of time until a tiny meadow opens up among the trees. A TIE-fighter rests on the grass, right at the edge between the wildflowers and the trees, with the curved-in tips of its wings hidden under the foliage.

Boba stops, protest ready on the tip of his lips. "I really—"

"You will come on the cruiser, where you will receive your payment," Vader tells him firmly. No space to argue.

Boba accepts his fate rather sullenly. A lot of extra trouble, for nothing. He will have to return to get his ship anyway.

Entering the TIE fighter after _the_ Darth Vader feels like a scene from a holovid, completely unreal and untethered to reality—Vader obviously piloting the ship, but Boba? About to blend in with the wall behind him just so he doesn't touch a single thread of Vader's cape. It's… too strange to make sense of it. A bit like that cracked artifact, which he is still holding onto.

The artifact! 

A fine distraction.

Boba takes it in his hands, eager to look at anything else. Perhaps also to stop listening so avidly to the crinkling of Vader's leather gloves and sleeves as his hands move here and there to turn the TIE fighter on. There’s barely any space left for air between them.

It’s… actually quite undignified.

Thankfully, Boba knows he can count on someone of Darth Vader’s caliber to never mention this again.

Vader makes no small talk. There isn't enough time for it, though Boba entertains the notion for all of two minutes before abandoning it in a flurry. Small talk with Vader… what would they even say? How would you answer if Darth Vader asked about your day?

He huffs at the mental image, glad it is simply his imagination.

"Something funny?" Vader asks.

"Just tired, Lord Vader. My head is full of thoughts, and not all of them make sense."

"Hm."

A massive imperial cruiser is orbiting the planet lazily, with all the slow, unavoidable self assurance of a galactic giant. Though the planetside base suffered a heavy loss, it is but a speck of dirt for the Empire itself, and they all know it.

(Even the rebels know it, but for them, victory is made of little beads of hope strung around a rope until it is long enough to raise the curtains and let the sun shine in.)

The Empire cuts swiftly, harshly, en masse, with no regard for casualties or destruction. The scale they operate on is vividly different, but there’s a saying somewhere, about the pebble that overturns the cart.

The presence of Boba Fett is marked by the exceptionally awkward faces of the greeting committee, consisting of two young officers, and a stormtrooper, out of which only the stormtrooper manages to hide their reaction, thanks to their helmet. The two officers look at Boba like he's an anomaly, which he can't really blame them for. He did just step out of Vader's personal ship, after all.

"Follow me," Vader says, walking past the three people without paying them any mind.

"As you wish."

The imperial cruiser is a massive maze of hallways and rooms, and milling with endless troopers. The area Vader takes him to is close to the bridge of the ship, further away from the buzz of activity. Once the blast doors close behind them, there’s no background noise to disturb them, except for the usual rumble of the engines. (And Vader, of course.)

"There's a sofa over there."

Boba looks around, finding a simple, uncomfortable looking sofa set up next to a low table, pushed by the wall in the corner of the foyer. He’s been here before, when accepting other missions, but never cared enough to pay attention to the furniture. Upon seeing it, he nods. There _is_ a sofa over there.

"You can sleep," Vader says. "You said you were tired." The way he says it, it feels like an insult. How dare Boba be tired and forget about it?

Boba stares back at him and says, very eloquently, "Uh."

"If the Empire needs your services, you should be at full strength," Vader explains further. Very condescendingly, but so kind of him, to go that extra mile and make Boba feel so cared for.

"I see." There's no good way out of this. There's also no way he would sleep on an imperial ship, without two dozen traps put in place to watch his back, but he relents, if only to prevent the further arguing (and the force-choking, should the argument become too heated.) Bone-weary for several new reasons now, he walks to the sofa and sits.

It's not as uncomfortable as it looked from a distance, actually.

Huh.

He sets down his jetpack next to the foot of the sofa, and leans fully into the material. The plush backrest swallows him comfortably, offering his back enough support that it is… quite nice. Now that he's sitting with no reason to get back up again in the near future, the past few days catch up with him all at once, turning his limbs into dead weight, and his neck into jelly, barely able to hold his head straight.

The ceiling of the cruiser is mildly decorated, if it can even be called that—beyond the shapes making up the ceiling panels, there are a handful of lines following the layout of the room within a hand's width from the edge, getting progressively closer to each other toward the central point.

It makes him think of the way Vader drew all that energy toward him. How he contained it, first, then put his own fury into it, and how it fell upon the rebels like a seismic sea wave, smothering them within seconds. 

So hopeful the rebels were when they saw Darth Vader without his saber, yet that is a mere object. A glorified blade. The real source of Vader's power lies well beyond such simple things. It's rather like that sphere Bob's found. Something connected to the universe.

Only the cosmos could spur into being such a thing. Though he’s travelled far and wide in the galaxy, nothing else has made him dwell on the intricate, hidden forces of the Universe like this sort of power does now.

***

Thinking these thoughts verging on philosophical, it's a bit like counting bantha: from one musing—

_Vader is strong as fuck?!_

—to another—

_When he says 'the Empire needs', does he mean ‘I need?’_

—he drifts off without meaning to. The realization comes only when his eyes snap open and he finds a tiny mouse droid hitting the leg of the table insistently with a dull, repetitive noise.

How much time has passed?

He leans forward, a stab of pain catching him in the neck, all the way down to his clavicles—that answers enough.

Truly, he almost finds himself wishing that a stormtrooper pushed him sideways, a welcomed and thoughtful gesture for once, if only to avoid this crick in his neck. He has to keep his head at an angle to alleviate the pain.

A sudden, horrible crunching noise comes from the droid, prompting Boba to look down at it in surprise.

Before his very eyes, the droid collapses into itself, as if crushed by an invisible hand.

"Repairs are underway," Vader says. His breathing apparatus no longer unnerves Boba like it did in the beginning—the proof of it is how little he noticed when the noise popped up in his periphery. Out of the shadows of the entrance, Darth Vader materialises like a spectre.

Repairs?

Oh, Slave-I!

The thought of his ship brings Boba back with his feet on solid ground—what on Tatooine is he doing here? How did he end up crashing? Did he dream about the TIE-fighter? Did he actually wield Vader’s lightsaber, however briefly? His rested mind recoils wildly at these ideas, each more egregious than the last.

"Poor droid," Boba comments.

 _"Loud_ droid," Vader corrects him as he approaches, "and defective." He is so tall that he blocks the light streaming in from the corridor, casting a dark shadow over Boba. It’s also hard to look at him proper, as his neck still refuses to cooperate.

"How long was I out?"

"Six standard hours," the Dark Lord answers, annoyed. Too little or too much, for his expectations? "I have the rundown of your ship. A team is handling it currently."

"And the rebels?"

"Subdued, for now. I expect them to regroup in the near future, but the Empire will not be taken by surprise again." He goes ahead and does the unthinkable: he sits down on the sofa, a good distance away from Boba, altogether miraculous to see. Yet another thing Boba will be able to brag about in the future.

"What are yo—what is the Empire looking for? I didn’t realize there were valuable minerals in this system," Boba asks. He doesn’t quite expect a proper answer—Empire secrets and all—but the strange amicable mood lures him into conversation.

A stormtrooper walks in at that moment, carrying a tray in their hands. They awkwardly place it on the table, give Vader a frantic salute, then the trooper all but evaporates out of the room like the faintest meteors burning out across the Tatooinian night sky. The most impressive sight on the tray is a large plate full of pralines, each wrapped in shiny tinfoil, looking precisely like the sort of food served only on Coruscant’s top level restaurants.

The oddest thought comes to mind: what does Vader eat? Does he eat at all? Perhaps he is a cyborg, but that begs the question—how do cyborgs sustain the organic parts of their body? Back during the fight, Boba saw him reassemble his leg without a second thought, so at least one part of him is cold and metal. His lungs must be organic, though. Maybe his heart.

"Eat," Vader says plainly. There’s never any ‘please’ or ‘thanks’ with this man, it seems.

"I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t take my helmet off in the company of others," Boba says. Though he says this, he looks at the table and spots quite the delicious wrappers, promising glazed walnuts, and lavender truffles, among other things. Not proper food, but definitely proper snacks, no doubt taken from the reserves meant for the high-ranking officers. That alone makes Boba reconsider his decision to abstain—and also the rumble of his stomach, which comes alive all of a sudden at the sight.

"Why not?"

Boba folds his arms and leans back on the sofa. "I don’t want to."

"..."

"I’ll take it off if you take yours off too."

Vader makes a weird noise, like a laugh but steely and sharp. "There’s nothing to see, bounty hunter. This" —he points at himself plainly— "is all there is."

"Nothing beneath my armour either," Boba agrees pleasantly, if a tad bitter. "Some say you’re hard to reason with, Vader, but I can see now how wrong they are."

Another laugh—genuine, perhaps, in another time, in another life.

"You asked about the dig site." He holds out his hand and waits. 

A few seconds later, a tiny black sphere floats in from the chamber behind them, carried through the air effortlessly by the Force. It lands squarely in the middle of his palm. No light catches on its surface—without the outer shell made of stone, it seems to absorb everything around it like a black hole.

"An artifact, remnant of an ancient civilization," he says. "This material can be highly volatile."

 _And you let me fly around with that in my hands?_ Boba thinks morosely.

"It’s stable in this form, but under certain conditions it could be used as a source of energy." He turns it around in his hand, but it is a perfect sphere, and does not appear to be rotating at all. It’s eerie.

Boba hums in reply.

A few minutes pass by in terse silence, then Vader stands and walks toward the door. Right before he exits, he says, "Please do eat something. It’s free of charge."

"You drive a hard bargain."

"Nobody will bother you."

Boba chuckles. "Perhaps I will."

The Sith Lord leaves, then, and Boba spends a full hour savouring the pralines the Grand Moff Tarkin himself requisitions, drinking iced caf of the highest quality, and thinking about the very unusual relationship he has with Darth Vader, wondering how he even got to this point.

(As for where they go from here, that’s a question for another day.)

**Author's Note:**

> i listened to 'what the water gave me' by florence + the machine while writing some of this and that song has some hella sad lyrics. i'm talking: 'cause they took your loved ones / but returned them in exchange for you / but would you have it any other way?'
> 
> thanks prowl for the boba + lightsaber talk on the server that sparked this whole thing! i ended up thinking of the clones picking up their jedi generals' lightsabers and realized we got a clone and a jedi right here too hehe! other stuff featured here: the too many hours i spend in battlefront ii 😌
> 
> thank you very much for reading! ♥♥


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